Should I be worried about how the iOS changes will affect my social media marketing?
By now you’ve probably heard about the iOS changes. You may even have noticed that it’s affecting the results of your social media marketing efforts. So what are these iOS changes all about and how should you respond?
With the expansion of digital connections and applications worldwide, more and more internet users are concerned that AI has become too powerful, which is causing widespread privacy concerns.
Apple has stepped up to address these concerns. Their response? A more transparent data sharing policy through the iOS App Tracking Transparency Framework (ATTF). With the recent iOS changes, users are now being asked for their consent to be tracked every time they download an app. This gives users more control over their online data and privacy.
So, while regular Apple users pop the confetti over this new update, marketers, business owners, and advertisers have become extremely anxious about how it will affect their social media marketing reach and results.
What do iOS changes mean for your business?
For business owners and digital marketers, the new iOS update has diminished the available data needed to effectively measure and optimize paid ads. This is severely affecting social media marketing, especially for paid ads that include conversion tracking.
Facebook, being one of the most powerful online platforms, allows the tracking of activities on various websites and mobile apps through codes known as Facebook pixels. The information gathered through these pixels enables you to track specific segments of the population, measure the effectiveness of your ads, and create retargeting strategies based on user engagement.
With the iOS changes, losing the ability to target consumers who have not agreed to be tracked is a major setback. You need to understand the impact of your ads in order to ensure that your social media marketing efforts aren’t going to waste.
The burning question every business owner has now is this:
Is social media advertising dead?
While Apple seems to be starting a fight with Facebook, a device mogul versus an app tycoon, we all know that one is not independent of the other. Both products complement each other to provide a better user experience.
So, the answer to that is NO. You just have to alter some of your social media marketing methods to make sure your ads are measured, reported, and optimized properly for Apple devices.
HOW YOUR BUSINESS CAN RESPOND TO THE RECENT IOS CHANGES
How do you navigate through the iOS changes?
Facebook’s answers to Apple’s iOS changes include these two critical actions:
1. Verify your domain
Facebook requires every domain in the Business Manager account to be verified to prove authenticity and ownership of the listed websites. Domain verification allows owners to edit their links and preserve the integrity of their content by preventing possible misuse of ad accounts.
(Have you verified your domain yet? Better head on over to business.facebook.com now to double check.)
2. Determine your eight most valuable conversion events
Prior to the software update, Facebook allowed unlimited pixel tracking on your website and mobile apps. That meant that all the activities on your social media platforms and web pages were measured and reported. The enormity of that data allowed you to develop and improve your ad strategies based on audience engagement.
With the recent changes, marketers are now allowed to have only eight conversion events per domain for optimization. This means that you need to identify which activities matter most for the growth of your businesses. Whether you want to track page views, searches, add to carts, or purchases, your tracking activities need to align with the goals of every campaign you have.
You can configure these events through the Aggregated Event Measurement tab on Facebook’s Events Manager page.
But wait, there’s more!! Oh, bummer.
You also have to reorder your events based on priority because when a user completes more than one action, only the higher priority event will be reported.
What other proactive measures can you take in your social media marketing?
On top of these two critical actions that we’ve outlined, you can take further actions to optimize your social media marketing efforts through the following:
Create segments based on mobile device software
Remember that while iOS 14.6 changes ad targeting for Apple users, you still have the other half of the population who are Android users. Creating a different campaign specific for Android users alone will allow you to get a better return on ad spend (ROAS) since the data gathered from these devices are more comprehensive.
Add a post-purchase survey to your website
Manually tracking users may not be ideal but doing so gives you further insights into your audience’s activities. Post-purchase surveys provide consumer data, click attribution, and other feedback directly from the audience themselves.
Complement your Facebook pixels with other tools
Using other online tools that enable you to access data without the use of cookies will help enhance your ad strategies. Some of these tools include ‘data clean rooms’ where aggregated online data are stored by huge companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
From the term itself, ‘clean rooms’ are walled gardens of data received from and shared with advertisers without infringing on user privacy. This data capturing and storage system allows for a better understanding of audience preferences and activities.
Build customer relationships through value exchange strategies
Relationship building is the heart of modern marketing, and that is emphasized with social media marketing. It’s not just about how your business can benefit from user interaction but also how your audience can benefit from your platforms.
Most consumers would willingly allow businesses to track them in exchange for a better web experience. Freebies, discounts, and other rewards may be given to obtain the user’s permission to be tracked or at least give information necessary for your business to make online marketing decisions.
Hire an expert!
Still feeling overwhelmed with the iOS changes and how they’ll affect your social media marketing and overall sales? The technicalities of tracking and online advertising strategy and execution can be a very involved process. So why not get an expert to help you instead?
At Barker Social, our team has over 20 years of digital marketing experience. We know how to handle software updates and ad policy changes and to make them work with your overall social media marketing strategy. We focus on data and results to help deliver measurable outcomes. So instead of trying to bury your nose deep in advertising jargon, let us handle it for you.
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